The noun taliswoman designates:
– a talisman associated with a woman, especially one in the shape of a female figure;
– a woman likened to a talisman, especially in providing protection or bringing luck.
Coined on various occasions by different persons, independently from one another, often with humorous intent, taliswoman is an alteration of the noun talisman, with substitution of the noun woman for the element ‑man—although, in fact, this element does not represent the noun man, designating an adult male human being.
(The noun talisman, designating anything thought to have magical or protective powers, is, via French or Spanish, from Arabic ṭilasm, itself from Hellenistic Greek τέλεσμα (= télesma).)
The noun taliswoman now chiefly designates a female sports player regarded as the leading representative of her team, who inspires other members to perform to their utmost ability or achieve outstanding results. The following, for example, is from the column View from the sofa, by Michael Deacon, published in The Daily Telegraph (London, England) of Tuesday 31st July 2012 [No. 48,886, page 6, column 4]:
LISTENING to the TV commentary on the Olympics is a great way to broaden your vocabulary. Every day you learn fascinating new words. I’ll never forget the women’s football match during the 2008 Games, for example, in which the BBC commentator referred to a particularly influential player as her team’s “taliswoman”.
The earliest occurrences of the noun taliswoman that I have found are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From a correspondence from London about the visit to England of the Queen Dowager of Oude, published in The Birmingham Journal and Commercial Advertiser (Birmingham, Warwickshire, England) of Saturday 23rd August 1856 [Vol. 32, No. 1,820, page 6, column 1]:
Her Majesty is reported never to have left off eating all the time she was on board the ship that brought her to Southampton; at least her cooks were during the voyage eternally dressing for her use edibles of such flavour that when she sent a dish in to the Christian passengers in the other part of the ship, the taste used to make them as ravenous even after dinner as so many aldermen are before. What can have been the cause of this eagerness for food on her Majesty’s part, and her power of making others equally eager? She is seemingly owner of the desideratum Bulwer 1 so ardently sighs for in one of his novels—“a perpetual appetite, a digestive houri that shall renew her virginity every time she is embraced.” What is the talisman, or taliswoman rather, seeing that a lady is in the case? Clearly it must be the sauce—the Oude sauce. Hitherto the King of Oude’s sauce has been the prince of piquancies […]. But if the King of Oude’s sauce possess [sic] such a forty-Soyer power of tickling one’s stomach, what must not the Queen of Oude’s sauce be?—the Queen Dowager’s, the real old original thing!
1 This refers to the British author and politician Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873); the quotation, from one of his novels, Pelham; Or, The Adventures of a Gentleman (1828), is actually: “perpetual appetite—a digestive Houri, which renewed its virginity every time it was touched.”
2-: From Open Letter to the Forces, by ‘The Talisman’, dated Nottingham Journal Office, 22nd October 1943, published in the Nottingham Journal (Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England) of Friday 22nd October 1943 [No. 36,751, page 2, column 8]:
We feel we can really settle down a little for a few days. We have gathered our blackberries, our tomatoes, our pears. We have bottled them—at least, Mrs. Taliswoman has—we have burnt the garden rubbish to make potash, attended to the compost heap, [&c.].
3-: From American Eagle soars in No. Atlantic crossing, by John Ahern, published in the Boston Sunday Globe (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) of Sunday 13th July 1969 [Vol. 196, No. 13, page 93, column 7]:
American Eagle, the Twelve Meter Yacht, today is en route from Cork to Copenhagen, and if anybody has any worries, forget ’em. This bucket sails under a lucky star.
[…]
“She’ll go and we’ll prove it to you,” Patsy Kennedy insisted. And this is a gal you should know. She has to be the good luck piece. Since she signed aboard everything has been golden.
[…]
The guess here is that the young sea sprite named Patsy Kennedy is the talisman—or taliswoman if there is such a thing.
How else can it be explained that a Twelve Meter Yacht has crossed the Atlantic and still is going?
4-: From With David Isaacs, published in the Coventry Evening Telegraph (Coventry, Warwickshire, England) of Friday 7th March 1975 [No. 26,010, page 7, column 1]:
TALISWOMAN . . .
I BELIEVE the Talisman Theatre at Kenilworth are set to select a woman as their next director of productions at the annual meeting later this month. Ann Brooks, a leading member of the group for some years, is likely to take over from Keith Higgins, who, as I mentioned last week, is resigning.
5-: From The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) of Friday 20th May 1977 [Vol. 91, No. 123, page 21, column 1]—the Talismen are the student-athletes at Vancouver Technical Secondary School:
Talis(wo)men show their heels
By MIKE BEAMISHEnglish language purists might blanch at the thought of “Talisperson”. Nevertheless, Vancouver Technical Talismen might not today be Vancouver high school track and field champions without the Taliswomen.
The Talismen—or, if you insist, Talispeople—had no need of lucky charms and amulets Thursday to convincingly win their second straight team championship at Empire Stadium.
[…]
When Olympic silver medal high jumper Greg Joy competed for Van Tech, the Talismen consistently finished among the Top 10, but never made a run for the title until the Taliswomen began to pull up their socks.
[…]
Taliswomen accounted for 273 of Van Tech’s points total (vs. 118½ for second place Kits), won both juvenile and junior girls divisions and produced a trio of individual aggregate champions.
6-: From an advertisement for Kennett’s golf shops, sellers of Talisman, a brand of golf irons—advertisement published in the Sports section of the Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California, USA) of Saturday 14th October 1978 [Vol. 97, No. 315, part III, page 3, column 4]:
We stock Talisman in 8 specs, for men and women (no, we don’t call those sets Taliswoman).
The earliest occurrence that I have found of taliswoman in the sense of a female sports player regarded as the leading representative of her team is from Monaghan football’s iron lady, about the football player Margaret Kierans, by Enda McEvoy, published in the Sports section of The Sunday Tribune (Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) of Sunday 4th October 1998 [Vol. 19, No. 40, page 7, columns 5 & 6]:
A tearaway wing-forward, a natural leader, described by some as “a sort of female version of Kevin Moran” 2 who doesn’t think twice of sticking her head in where others would flinch at putting in less vulnerable parts of their anatomy.
[…]
In 1996 […] she was captain again and the scorer of the winning goal, pouncing when the ball came back off the upright in the replay against Laois. A county’s taliswoman.
[…]
A taliswoman, yet a fairly elderly taliswoman by the standards of the ladies’ game, where 15-year-olds are not unknown.
2 This refers to the Irish former footballer Kevin Moran (born 1956), who excelled at the top levels in both Gaelic football and Association football.
word histories 